Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Early riser
My adorable little son has developed a little problem. He is an early riser. About two months ago, Baxter went from waking up after 7 a.m. to waking up around 6:45. After talking about it and trying to decide the best thing for my family, I decided to start getting up at 6:30 (in the past I would just wake up with the kids, but that did not allow me to do anything like shower or read my Bible, in peace). I managed to wake up before Baxter for about a week, and then he started waking up earlier. And earlier. Today he woke up at 5:52 a.m. Though Baxter is quite possibly the sweetest, mild-mannered baby in the world, when he wakes up he is cranky. He does NOT fall back asleep! Waking up so early throws our schedule off for the entire day--he eats earlier, needs to nap earlier, and so goes on the day. How can I help him sleep later? Just another 30-45 minutes would be great! Any advice would be great.
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9 comments:
Owen has been doing the same thing! He has even picked up a night feeding again. I would love to know what others think.
Sorry Baxter is getting up so early. We have early risers here too. I think that it is more Phoebe than Gabriel. Don't know if this will help but you should check out this blog . . .
http://babywisemom.blogspot.com
We've had dark curtains up in Luke's room since we brought him home. They're not blackout curtains; you can tell night from day. He's never been a really early riser (thank goodness!), but I do think the navy curtains help.
Abigail has been doing the same thing and I know for her it has been because she did not eat enough for her the day before. Because I am having to bottle feed, I know on the days that she has only had 26 ozs she wakes up at like 6ish.
I would recommend for you maybe feeding him again around 8 pm or 9 pm (or 2 hours after his last feeding as a snack). If you do not want to keep him up longer, I would work hard on nursing him for 30 full minutes (not including burp time) and/or offering him more baby food than you normally offer him. Either one requires more time which can be hard but totally worth it. I really think it has to do with him being hungry and growing.
Keep us updated!
I don't have very late sleepers here on a regular basis (the oldest are up before 7 and Lottie by 6:30), but Cora went through waking up at about 5:30 when she was Baxter's age or so. When nursing her and putting her back to bed became a habit, I started adding yogurt to her bedtime routine. That snack seemed to help hold her over until later. I also have had to resort to putting towels temporarily over the curtains in the oldest girls' room while the sun is rising earlier. Looks redneck, but I'd rather have my sleep and their better dispositions.
Vaden just started doing that when we moved, until we hung his curtains. We have blackout curtains and they keep Mr. Sunshine away until we're ready!
I don't remember how old Baxter is, though, so maybe it is hunger... I just know for V, the light wakes him up earlier.
Yeah, we did the darken the room thing for Josh and the girls - ours was just throw a blanket over the rod (don't know if you remember that at Circle Drive :) - not very attractive, but effective.) And then, I started timing how long I left the girls in after they woke up and just kept pushing it another five minutes until it made it to 6:30 - yes, that's right - 6:30 - mine are all early risers :). But...it's better than the 5 am that they were doing. Kathleen has even started sleeping later, but there are days when I have left her in there for 30 minutes, gone and gotten a shower, etc. just to stretch it out. Hope that helps!
We have had to put the redneck towels up, too. :) But that doesn't help us in the mornings. Russell has started waking up some mornings at 4 or 4:30, ready for the day. It's still dark at that hour. ;) Praise the Lord that this is not an everyday occurance.
I have started putting him to bed at 8:30 instead of 7:30-8:00 and making sure has a snack about 7:30. This seems to help--except when he's teething or congested. Then we're just up at 4:30. My philosophy is that you can set a schedule, but it's just not always going to work on everyday. Part of parenting.
A fan in the room does the trick at the Nelson house---we started this when we lived in the "country" and couldn't sleep in the summer because of all the noisy critters---it continues today in every bedroom in the house---Joshua slept in as a baby---as much as he could and still get his two sister's to school by 7:45 am--try it~
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